A pharmacy technician (PhT) performs pharmacy-related functions including but not limited to filling out prescription medications.
Training, certification, licensing, and actual practice of pharmacy technicians varies not only worldwide but in some countries regionally as well as by employer.
[1] Pharmacy technicians are healthcare professionals trained in the technical aspects of supplying medicines and medical devices to patients since the 1950s.
Pharmacy technicians work in a variety of locations (usually in community, retail, and hospital pharmacies), but can also work for long-term care facilities, pharmaceutical manufacturers, third-party insurance companies, computer software companies, in government, the military, or in teaching.
Job responsibilities often include dispensing prescription drugs and other medical devices to patients and instructing them on their use.
Additionally, pharmacy technicians handle inventory related tasks such as cycle counts and returning expired and damaged medications back to the manufacturers.
[9] Accredited pharmacy technician diplomas, certificates and college programs are offered in the Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.
In 2010, the Minister of Health, Abdullah Al-Rabiah, issued a decision to stop the teaching of pharmacy technicians immediately.
In Sri Lanka, the government agency National Apprentices and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA) has developed National Competency Standards (NCS) leading to the award of the NVQ Level 4 certification as pharmacy technician for pharmacy employees who have above four years of experience.
The one-year training consists of subject areas in compounding, dispensing, stock management, housekeeping practices and customer care development.
Govt Medical College and CPR Hospital, Kolhapur provides training for pharmacy technicians in India.
Pharmacists Council of Nigeria refused to allocate responsibilities that will give them right to practice at community level interdependently.
It was also established that NBTE is saddled with the accreditation of courses offered by Polytechnics and Monotechnics in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Tanzania has two pharmacy technician schools: one is a public sector institution under the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and accredited by Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, and the other is affiliated with a faith-based organization located in Kilimanjaro which offers diploma training.
[13] The main job duties of Tanzanian pharmacy technicians include dispensing, stock management, compounding, quantification of pharmaceutical formulations, and laboratory work.
In some areas of the country facing acute shortage of physicians and other clinicians, pharmacy technicians have also been found prescribing medicine.
Additional training is available to qualified pharmacy technicians and can include accuracy checking of dispensed prescriptions (though there is no legal requirement that a person be qualified as a pharmacy technician before undertaking an accuracy checking course), medicines management (hospital or PCT), participation in the running of hospital clinics such as anticoagulant clinics, dosing warfarin patients under dose banding guidance,[citation needed] or other duties traditionally done by pharmacists.
An additional 16% of pharmacy technician jobs were in hospitals,[2] while others worked for nursing homes, pharmaceutical wholesalers, or the federal government.
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C. require both certification and licensing or registration, though some states may have a training period before these requirements.
California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas (with exceptions), and Vermont require only a license.